Brad Underwood has earned his place in the college basketball conversation, and the numbers from the post-COVID era show why.
When he arrived at Illinois in 2017, some fans questioned whether he could deliver the kind of March success they wanted. It took three seasons for him to get the Illini back to the NCAA Tournament, but since then he has pushed the program to an Elite Eight and a Final Four. He also led Illinois to its first Final Four since 2005 and has now strung together seven straight 20-win seasons.
That kind of run puts Underwood in a real discussion with some of the sport’s most accomplished active coaches. To sort it out, the comparison here starts with the 2020-21 season and looks at Final Four trips, total wins, NCAA Tournament appearances, NCAA Tournament wins, regular-season conference titles and conference tournament titles.
Some names are in a different class because of national championships, and those coaches get treated as a tier above Underwood: Dan Hurley, Tom Izzo, Rick Pitino, Bill Self, Todd Golden, John Calipari and Scott Drew.
Within the post-2020-21 group, Kelvin Sampson stands out immediately. He has reached two Final Fours, while the others in the discussion have one apiece. Sampson also has 190 wins, six NCAA Tournament appearances, 18 NCAA Tournament wins, three regular-season conference titles and three conference tournament titles in that span.
The rest of the field includes Jon Scheyer, Tommy Lloyd, Matt Painter, Mark Few, Rick Barnes and Shaka Smart. Scheyer has one Final Four, 124 wins, four NCAA Tournament appearances, 11 NCAA Tournament wins, two regular-season titles and three conference tournament titles.
Lloyd has one Final Four, 148 wins, five NCAA appearances, 10 tournament wins, three regular-season titles and three conference tournament titles. Painter has one Final Four, 164 wins, six NCAA appearances, 12 tournament wins, two regular-season titles and two conference tournament titles.
Few’s profile is different from the others because of where he coaches. He has spent his entire career at Gonzaga in a non-power conference, and the results are still hefty: one Final Four in the period being measured, 174 wins, six NCAA Tournament appearances, 14 NCAA Tournament wins, four regular-season conference titles and five conference tournament titles. He also reached the championship game in 2017 after Gonzaga lost just one game in the regular season.
Barnes and Smart fall below Underwood in this current picture. Barnes has not been to a Final Four since 2003, and Smart’s last Final Four came in 2011.
Barnes has 152 wins, six NCAA Tournament appearances, 12 NCAA Tournament wins, one regular-season conference title and one conference tournament title since 2020-21. Smart has 110 wins, four NCAA Tournament appearances, three NCAA Tournament wins, one regular-season title and one conference tournament title.
That leaves Underwood among a tight group with Painter, Scheyer, Lloyd and Few. Each has one Final Four during the period being studied, though their situations are not the same. Scheyer took over at Duke in 2022 rather than 2021, and Lloyd coached in the Pac-12 before Arizona moved to the Big 12.
Few still gets the edge in that cluster because of his total wins, NCAA Tournament wins and conference titles, along with the larger scale of what he has built at Gonzaga. The other four can be sorted in different ways depending on which accomplishments matter most.
However that second tier is arranged, Underwood belongs in the mix. His recent track record makes a strong argument that he is at least a top-15 coach in college basketball. The only other metrics considered were NCAA Tournament wins as an underdog and first-round NBA Draft picks, but those were left out in the final comparison.
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